study

A few years go, a friend of mine was rushed to the hospital with a searing pain in her chest that was so intense, she thought she was having a heart attack. It turns out she had a blood clot, a side effect from the birth-control pill that's more common in women over 35 who smoke (which she was, and she did) — one that can be fatal if it reaches your lungs.

Now here's a “Well, duh!” moment. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at how obesity exacerbates age-related decline, and that “a combination of weight loss and exercise provides greater improvement in physical function than either intervention alone.”